~O~
Part Three
Dean was toying with the puppet that Andy had picked up from the security room. Something about it interested him.
"So did you guys find anything?" Mark asked, looking at Andy and Amy.
Andy smiled and nodded his head. "Yeah, I found those old tapes," he said, gesturing to the piles of tapes near him.
Amy held out the EVP device. "I'm not sure what might be on here."
"Let's check it out," Mark replied. He looked at Dean.
The other teen simply gave a sigh and nodded, setting the puppet down at his side. "Yeah, hold on a minute."
He took the device and began to set up the equipment. Mark suddenly winced and looked at Emily.
"Hey, I have to use it real quick," he whispered.
Emily raised an eyebrow. "Where are you going?"
Mark shrugged. "I'll be around the corner."
"Mark, that's nasty." Emily said, grimacing with disgust.
"What? I'm going to use a bottle."
He picked up an empty water bottle, shaking it for emphasis before he wandered down the darkness of the mall, flashlight in hand.
Dean started up the recording that Amy had received. At first, all that played back was the conversation she was having with Andy.
"Dude, check it out! These are, like, prehistoric!"
Shuffling; the sound of the two moving around the security office.
"Did they let kids run around in here or something?"
Amy smiled at Emily. "We found these messages written on the tapes."
The sound of laughter filled the air from the recording and Dean furrowed his brow. Amy and Andy smiled triumphantly.
"I knew we didn't just hear it!" Amy said.
Emily looked at Dean. The other teenager didn't seem as happy about the find as the two did. In fact, he looked troubled.
"What was that?"
"Hang on."
The sound over the recording played back the noises of Andy opening the closet door. Then his laugh and Amy reiterating her grandmother's ownership of a puppet.
Dean had almost gotten bored with the conversation until he leaned forward.
"Wait." he said.
The three looked at him curiously.
"What is it?" Emily asked.
"I thought I heard something."
"Really?" Amy looked somewhat pleased.
"Hold on." Dean said. "Let me try something."
He used his laptop to bring up the audio file. He played it back before stopping at one particular spot.
"Look." he told them. "Listen."
He played it back again, but all the three could hear was the sounds of Amy and Andy's retreating footsteps.
"I don't hear anything." Emily said, tilting her ear close to the speaker of the laptop. Then, her features lit up. "Wait..."
"What is it?" Amy asked, all humor gone.
She leaned in close to hear also and Andy joined in.
Dean tried to adjust the volume and pitch.
It was difficult to make out.
"...Get out..."
O
Vincent was leaving the gas station for the night, locking up the store.
"Hey, Vincent!"
He turned slightly with a sigh, not really interested in speaking to the same old woman who had spoken to the teenagers. Stupid kids... They always had to get her talking about old legends.
"What is it now?" he asked, looking at her as she approached.
The woman stared at him gravely. She had just stepped out of her car and was walking up to him. She was holding a newspaper in her hand.
"Look!" she said.
Vincent took the newspaper and noticed that there was an article about the Fazbear Galleria. It was set to be demolished in five days. But that wasn't what interested him. Supposedly, the case of the Missing Children was going to be reopen.
The old woman smiled, seemingly delighted now. "New evidence means they can finally catch the sick bastard who took them!"
Vincent gave her a look. Sympathetic. "You need to put that behind you. It's only going to make it worse, remember?"
She withered now, pain in her voice. She began to rub her hands together.
"She was my granddaughter, Vincent..."
"I know. But this isn't how she'd want you to spend the rest of your days," he assured her, patting her back gently. He began ushering her back to her car. "We have to let go. You know that as well as I do."
The woman opened her car door and sat down in the seat. She absently rubbed the steering wheel with two hands before her features crumbled.
"He took my granddaughter, Vincent..." she said, her voice cracking. "That...monster killed her!" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "And my daughter..."
Vincent wrapped up the newspaper, tucked it under his arm and bent down to her. He smiled soothingly and placed a hand over hers.
"I'm sorry those kids brought back those memories," he said. "That's why I hate it when they come by and ask all of those questions. Just go home and get some tea in you, okay?"
She nodded her head and rubbed her eyes with one hand. "But if there's a chance..."
He smiled a little. "I guess here's to hoping, right?"
A laugh answered him.
Once Ethel drove away, Vincent walked to his car. Then, he winced and scratched at his scar.
O
Mark had gone to an old bathroom stall to relieve himself. He had contemplated using the toilet anyway, but it didn't seem very decent, so he just went in the bottle. The sound of paper shuffling turned his attention toward a stall.
Frowning, Mark approached the stall curiously and tapped it open with the tip of his foot. His eyes widened and he immediately left the bathroom to rejoin his friends.
"Hey!" he called. "You guys have to see this!"
The others made their way into the bathroom with him and they found the stall he was looking into. The group of friends were amazed at what they saw.
Foxy.
The large, crimson-colored animatronic was lying on the toilet. Portions of his faux fur had been rotted away down to the endoskeleton and several of the metal joints looked rusted from age. As the teenagers remembered him, he had a large, sharp hook and dangerous rows of jagged teeth.
Foxy also had a pair of brown linen pants, shredded at the legs. Portions of his machinery were exposed as well as his chest.
He looked like a broken marionette without its strings. And above where Foxy was laying, a message was written.
LEAVE ME ALONE.
"Honestly, whoever made that really needs to get a life." Emily snapped. "God, I can't believe this..."
Mark shook his head. He seemed to think about something before Andy spoke up and knelt down in front of Foxy.
"Check it out! Foxy's still here." he said, with a laugh.
Mark furrowed his brow curiously. "I wonder if all of them are still here in the mall. Maybe we should look around." He smiled. "That would be pretty cool if we found all of them."
Suddenly, Foxy's voice box activated, startling the group into jumping back from him.
"ARRR!" Foxy hissed, his jaw creaking roughly; showers of rust poured from his mouth, "WELCOME TO *kzzzt* P-PIRATE COVE, LANDLUBBERS!"
The group of teenagers shared amused laughter. Foxy's voice box seemed to glitch constantly as he spoke, from obvious years of neglect.
"It's just his voice box," Amy said, with another chuckle. She studied the fox for a long time, curious. "It's really neat how he's still running after all these years."
"You know what this means?" Andy asked, raising a finger. "We can find all of them. See if we can auction them off. We can make a lot of money."
The others stared at him as if he was completely insane.
Andy shrugged at their looks. "What?" he said. "Dude, I'm just saying what's real. With that story about the missing kids, people are going to want to pay big bucks if these are the originals."
Amy snorted. "And just how are we going to explain to my mother the thousand pounds of metal and rotting felt in the back of your van?"
"Why would we explain it to your mother?"
"Because she has no idea I'm even here!"
"You didn't tell her?"
Amy scoffed and threw her arms in the air. "What would I say?" She made her voice light with mockery. " 'Oh hi, mom. Guess what? I wasn't really going to the beach. I'm at a famous site where kids were killed and people disappeared! I should be back before breakfast."
Mark held up a hand. "Guys, come on." he chided. "Seriously."
Outside of the bathroom doors, a shape quickly darted by, drawing Dean's attention while the others talking. He frowned and stepped out, looking around. In the darkness, he could have sworn he saw a form of a child crawling away on all fours.
"Hello?" Dean called, his voice cracking out of him.
"Remember, I know how scary they might seem, but they just need help..."
Dean remembered his mother's words that darted across his mind in regards to the things she had seen. What was it he saw?
Dean walked back into the pizzeria and up toward Pirate Cove. A sign was posted nearby that read: "SORRY! OUT OF ORDER!". Child depictions of the animatronics had been drawn and tacked on the wall nearby. It seemed like these pictures were everywhere.
Dean looked around before noticing a set of scratches on the stage. Curious, he bent down and ran his fingertips over them, noticing that they formed perfect spaces for his fingers.
Behind him, the pictures had changed to crude drawings of weeping children.
"It's me..."
Dean shut his eyes when an image filled his mind unbidden. He saw a flash of blood-soaked hands scratching across the stage. The sounds of screams fading in the back of his thoughts. Another flash of someone being sucked screaming into the darkness of the stage.
A cruel giggle.
"You shouldn't be here."
Dean's eyes opened and he shivered with fright. "We shouldn't be here..." he whispered.
Suddenly, the sound of ethereal screams filled the air and Dean watched in mute disbelief as the entire game room came to life.
Cracks formed on the glass of the doors, as if something heavy was thrown at them. Lights began flickering wildly around him. The ghostly, disembodied screams continued; some were even young, like that of children.
Dean panted heavily, watching in horror as a wicked slash ripped the wall behind him. He backed away, stumbling from it and fell onto his ass. Chairs were thrown through the air, a claw machine was smashed by an invisible force.
A mechanical scream.
Dean held his hands to his ears and scrambled to his feet, attempting to flee. But he felt his arm roughly seized and he was forced back against the floor.
He looked up with a gasp as a shadow loomed over him. A shadow of pitch.
Dean's eyes widened and he gave several frightened gasps.
A smile spread out across the shadow. A grin of pure white.
Just then, a groaning sound filled the air. Dean looked out toward the mall and he craned his head to see better.
Something was crawling toward him. Panting and choking.
A wet, sticky sound came from it. Each movement seemed to cause it more pain. It's body shuddered violently.
"Mark!" he screamed, covering his eyes with two hands. "Help!"
Help me.
Suddenly, the chaos stopped.
Dean opened his eyes and looked around, struggling to catch his breath. He noticed everything seemed normal. Nothing was flying around, the pictures were not depicting any sorrowful children. The thing that had crawled toward him was gone.
Dean's eyes rolled in his head and he lost consciousness.
O
"Save them..."
Dean opened his eyes and he saw himself peering through the eyeholes of a mask again. This time, he looked down and noticed he was wearing a brown suit. He must have been dressed inside a Freddy Fazbear suit.
He noticed now that he was holding a microphone in one hand.
Dean looked around, noticing that he was standing in the Pizzeria. Everything looked brand new as the day it was built, but it was empty.
"Follow me."
The boy looked up at the sound of a soft, young voice, spotting the same puppet that Andy had found in the distance. It looked like it was floating in the shadows, but he could hardly tell from where he was standing.
"Wait, what...?" Dean said, unable to fathom what he was seeing.
"...Follow me..."
Dean felt himself pulled forward and he started to follow. He didn't know why.
A dream.
The puppet seemed to drift as silently and gracefully as a cloud, and occasionally stopped to look back to see if Dean was still following. He didn't know why he followed. He didn't have control over his legs.
Dean looked around as he passed through door after door, entering different rooms. The first room he passed looked like a parts and service room. Chica was lying on the floor in a disheveled state; her yellow body horribly thrown in tangles. Those eerie eyes seemed to stare at him.
When Dean passed it, Chica's eyes followed.
"...Save them..."
Dean was following the puppet and heard the soft whisper. He looked around the room - the party room. On the walls, the words: "Save them" had been scrawled in red.
Dean continued to follow the puppet and each time he passed the rooms, he began to notice that he was going in circles. He saw the same twisted form of Chica.
He noticed the Toy Foxy lying in a heap in a corner. The difference between Toy Foxy and regular Foxy was the terrible, twisted endoskeleton she consisted of. She had a white face, red lipstick and frightening teeth.
Dean remembered hearing how the staff of the pizzaria had taken to calling her Mangle.
Yeah, that was supposed to be a kid's toy?
Her eyes seemed to follow Dean as he walked by, attempting to ignore what he saw.
But each time he passed, the room began to change; the colorful decorations looked as though they were going through a state of decay. Each poster, banner and even the walls and floors looked like they were being peeled apaprt. And he could hear the sounds of children sobbing. But he didn't notice that each picture and drawing the kids had made began to depict the children in them as lying dead in front of the animatronics.
Suddenly, he stepped in something damp and stopped, looking down and lifting his foot.
It was red.
He had stepped in a puddle of red.
Dean looked up, but found himself staring face-to-face with the puppet. It's black, lifeless stare filled his entire field of vision.
Then, the puppet disappeared and was replaced by the form of a man with a purple security guard's coat. Dean saw the badge gleaming, felt the hands grab him and drag him to a corner.
Someone screamed.
"You can't..."
Dean was being slapped across the face lightly by Mark. The others crowded around him and were struggling to wake him up.
"Dean!" Mark shouted. "Dean, get up!"
Dean awoke with a start and looked around sharply. "You can't!" he suddenly cried.
They stared at him in confusion, watching as the teen struggled to take in his surroundings. It looked like he had just received the scare of his life.
"Dude, what's up with you, man?" Andy said, frowning. "We found you laying on the floor."
Dean looked at them frantically, struggling to catch his breath. When he saw the odd looks, read the mild judgement on their faces, he immediately calmed.
"Sorry, I just slipped." he said.
Emily seemed to suspect otherwise, but she didn't speak. "Maybe I should take him home." she suggested.
Dean shook his head. "No, I'm fine." he insisted, "Really."
Mark smiled and patted his shoulder. "Yeah, he's fine."
"Mark, he passed out on the floor." Emily protested.
"I'm fine, Emily." Dean argued, his voice growing much more firm. "I can stay. There's no need to baby me."
He got up and walked away from them, still shaken by what he had seen in his dream and in the pizzeria.
The others looked at each other and Andy scoffed with amusement.
"Damn, someone grew chest hair behind our back." he joked.